Physical & Emotional Abuse Support Group

Abuse is a general term for the treatment of someone that causes some kind of harm (to the abused person, to the abusers themselves, or to someone else) that is unlawful or wrongful. No one deserves abuse, period. Abuse can be emotional, physical, or sexual.

What can I do?

Out almost 16 year old is seldom at home these days. She spends most of the time with her boyfriend and his family. She sleeps in his room. As far as I can tell he and they are nice people, but we have never met his family and don't know their name or address. But how nice can they be if they don't want to meet us?

My husband drives her wherever she wants. He is like a chauffeur on instant call to our kids. And he likes to help them with stuff. I could almost imagine he is a lovely guy. The oldest two girls, 20 and 18 have left home. He drops her off and picks her up from a petrol station near her boyfriend's house. What I think doesn't matter to my husband.

I am in Australia. So this is not seen as awful as it is in the US. But it breaks my heart and I think it is awful. And I never dreamed such things would be happening in my life. Realistically, is there anything I can do?

Was your daughter being abused at home, or was she watching someone else in your home being abused? maybe they don't want to meet you guys because of what she has told them about your home situation. Just speculating. I hope she is on birth control.

I don't know the relationship between you and your husband but she is a child and in the U.S. there would be plenty you could do. If she is sleeping with him and the parents are allowing it in their home that would be against the law here and they could get in big trouble. If your husband has pretty much allowed it then I think you need to start with him. Just my opinion. Good luck and God Bless.

Hi briqida. Thank you for replying. I guess this topic is the sort that will test (and try) people, but I finally decided to post it as it is of massive concern to me and it shocks me so much I think my mind kindof shuts down to a certain extent over it.

My daughter was not being abused at home in the big sorts of ways one might think of, such as physical, sexual or verbal abuse. And she was very well cared for in lots of ways. But my husband has not been able to help me create a suitable emotional and satisfying family life. In fact he has constantly done things that counter this. I can say this now but it has taken me many years to understand this and I am still working on it. I have been very confused about my husband's behavior and very prone to self doubt. As he is very critical, controlling, punishing and demanding, I found it very, very hard to rise above the effects of that on me. I still puzzle over what people might see as obviously out-of-line behaviors of his, but to me it can be very confusing and I often wonder if it is really my fault or I am an &quot;awful&quot; person.

My daughter was a fairly typical girl until 9+ months ago months ago (just after she turned 15), despite everything. She was a lovely girl at home, had lots of girlie friends, was good at sport, chose to go to a private/religious girl's school and liked it, and was a good student.

A girlfriend she has known since grade 1 left that girl's scool a year ago and went to a state run school to be with her boyfriend and who was a disgusting creep and did things like draw a p**is on her neck. My daughter has always been very loyal and maybe somewhat codependent.

That girlfriend friend was lonely at her new school, comes from a very dysfubctional family, her abusive father (divorced)killed himself 2 years ago, and I'd say she is BPD. She is also a very pretty, seductive and manipulative but she was in my daughter's group of friends till she went to her new school and I tolerated her, treating her nicely, for my daughter's sake and she was at our house a lot, including for many sleepovers. But she told my daughter I was nasty to her and my daughter believed her. I would say this was because I nicely declined to iron her clothes (after she tried to sweet talk me into doing so - I just said, nicely, sorry, we iron our own clothes here). She used to ring my daughter late at night to cry on her shoulder. Everything is a drama for her and she bitches about everybody. She is very nasty and has a bad mouth. I had to keep the little dog out of her way when she came or she would cuss and kick at it.

I let my daughter go for many sleepovers at that girl's house early last year, not realising the girl's mother was unable to control her and that she introduced my daughter to the down side of shopping mall/centre life including pin ball parlours, etc.

Suddenly my daughter did not come home and I ended up filing a police report. It is a long story but I think she got led into a very bad scene and lost her virginity to a guy she didn't even know. There was an older woman involved and her house and teenage boys. I and the police never found out who she was but she did try ringing me and conning me when she realised, from texts I sent my daughter, that the police was involved. My daughter turned her phone off after we kept insisting she come home. The woman was really low life - creepy and so stupid in how she tried to con me. I kept saying &quot;We want her home and will come and pick her up&quot; but she kept trying to suck me in about the lovely time my daughter was having. When my daughter finally came home after a couple of days, the woman had given her lots of beauty gifts. My daughter would not even tell the police who that woman was and it is actually not illegal here for her to keep my daughter at her place if my daughter was willing. Without any details from my daughter, the police did nothing.

We worked really hard to keep our daughter at home as suddenly she was talking about leaving and finding a place to live with that girl. Fortunately places are very hard to get here and the government has clamped down on giving government support allowances to under 16s. I worked hard at getting my husband to stay pleasant to her. At first his attitude was to kick her out. But she was actually behaving ok here, just suddenly withdrawn. I banned that girl from the house though.

Some time after my daughter suddenly got a boyfriend and she was fixed to him like glue, they even work the same shifts at Macdonalds. He is a year older and also goes to school. That girlfriend is out of the picture. But I have heard my daughter was finally getting to see her for what she was.

I put my daughter on birth control after very carefully talking to her about this. I made it clear I would prefer she remained celebate but I said it was her choice and I didn't want her pregnant or having an abortion. I took her to the doctor for this when she said she wanted it. She is on the pill.

She is not the daughter she used to be but she is civil. She has dropped her sport. We just bought her new school books for the coming school year so it seems she is going back to her school. She has talked to my husband about the possibility that she may move totally out of home into her boyfriend's. She is 16 in April.

My husband drives her, which usually means and her boyfriend around whenever she wants. She rang at 6.30 am for him to come to drive them to work or they would be very late. The boyfriend lives a fair way away.

The police were involved at one stage but not re the boyfriend though I checked re him. The way it goes here is that my daughter can live where she wants. She has to make a complaint re underage sex (16 is the legal age here). The police haven't been interested except for the couple of days when she as a formerly great kid went missing.

I can't make my husband do anything and he isn't amenable to what I call reason. I think he has FUBAR syndrome, a new word I have learned recently. It's like a worse case of FITH syndrome. Google it if you don't know it.

sweetie, invite them over for dinner...your daughter is practically living over there, you have a right to get to know the kind of people she is hanging around.... or sleuth around, find out if they work someplace you can just drop by and pull the &quot;Oh, Mrs. Jones? are you so and so's mother? Oh my gosh, my daughter is ______, your son is dating my daughter, how nice to meet you finally!!!&quot; Do what ya gotta do to meet these people. You really should, if only for your daughter's safety and your peace of mind.

I am sorry, I could not imagine my son gone and turning off his phone and he will be 20 years old Monday. If your daughter moves out who is responsible to support her? Will she expect you and your husband to give her money?

When I was about the same age, (many years ago :)), I was pretty, confused, lonely, angry, hormone-ridden, etc., etc. I got involved with an older guy and would leave a lot too. It drove my mother nuts, she'd be up for 2 days waiting for me to come home, I was also drinking and doing other things, she very well probably is too, sorry, but that's how it goes with teens. To this day I've always held a bit of resentment b/c my Mom and Dad never &quot;fought&quot; for me, put their foot-down, burned rubber over to the people involved houses and DEMANDED I come home, throw me into rehab., military-school, whatever, my Dad too turned his eye to everything, went about his work, etc. Fight for your Daughter, she'll hate you know, and it'll be a hell of a fight, but I PROMISE that she'll thank-you later, trust-me and you'll be glad. Teen-age girls can be a nightmare when they're &quot;in-love&quot; and all angry and all of that, I remember but don't give-up, and hang-in there, I'm praying for you. :)

Thank you everybody. I appreciate your support. I just feel overwhelmed by all this. I think I'm beaten down by all the years of being with my husband, as he is.

One thing I realised as I read the kind responses I have got since last time is that I feel so much shame. I never had much confidence anyway, but I think it is much worse since I've been with my husband. I guess he feels shame too and projects it onto me. I'd bee too ashamed to invite those people to the house but the boyfriend is welcome and I treat him nicely. But my daughter keeps him in her room when he visits. I do talk to him briefly though and he seems ok but not forthcoming. We actually got him and my daughter to come to a family Chinese dinner with the other kids and the partner of one. He didn't say much; seems very gawky maybe. That dinner was a very rare occurrence in our family and is like a very rare event like the lovely family portrait set we got when the 15 yr old was a baby.

We actually don't even know where the boyfriend lives. My husband drops them off and picks them up from a petrol station. Why ????? I have spoken to him about this but to no effect and I think he has the key as he is the driver and provides a service she really wants.

I was an important figure in the children's lives when they were young. Then my husband took over and sidelined me. He won't even give me the money to do the food shoppinr and planning. And he criticized me in front of the kids. The older two girls got very abusive to me as teenagers and my husband would do nothing. I've been written out of the family - rubbed out. I feel so unempowered. I have fought back over some things though, but he pays me back.

I am very miserable and have been so all my married life. So why don't I go? Well, that is not so easy. And it is a long story.

Maybe I'm just a mother the kids will wish they never had; a classic mother to complain about and blame everything on. To a certain extent I guess I think that is a correct viewpoint.

Hi fan4jr. Yes, I was hurt and shocked when my daughter turned off her phone. Most of all I was very worried. She hadn't done any of that before. And she had been a very lovely and sensible girl.

The government here will give her an allowance. Kids who have homes deemed unsuitable for them to live in get it. My second oldest girl got it at 15 but it was all a con, facilitated by a youth worker she got to believe her outrageous stories, primarily that she was homeless as she was kicked out of home (she wasn't). I facilitated the oldest girl to get it at 18, a couple of years later, after she left school as she was a destroyer of the peace here; a very angry girl who acted out here in all sorts of very stressful ways and nothing I did could keep it within tolerable proportions (he father was no help). I imagine that the 15 year old will get this allowance when she turns 16 if she goes about it in the right way.

And at least the 15 yr old will be able to pay her way if she has that allowance. We would still pay for her school fees, books and lots of other things.

Hello again :); I'm so sorry for your pain over your daughter(s) and marriage/Husband. I know how it feels to not have the strength to leave or even know if you really want to or need to. There are SO many nuances in a marriage/family that are impossible to even describe here or make anyone truely understand, not b/c they don't want to but b/c it all runs SO deep and complicated. I know. Australia, my son's Grandmother is from there, beautiful, good-people, I'd like to go some day. But I digress..................
Yes, I know things are looked at differently down-under and by the Authorities regarding this, for all of our (in the U.S.) huge, serious laws regarding juvenilles that are &quot;acting-out&quot; missing-school, gone for days, etc. it sure is funny that the U.S. still has the highest-rates of teen-age drug-abuse, pregnancy, violence (no other country comes close), and much more. Hang-in there, I would suggest coming with your Husband one day to pick them up and then finding-out where they have been or going (if you go w/him to drop-off) and DEMAND that you take them there or better yet, DEMAND that she is not to be taken anywhere. You know there is a huge possibility that they aren't even going or hanging-out at the Mother's house (I think that's what you said she said she was doing), and hanging-out somewhere even worse than that. I know these things b/c 20 yrs. ago I was a wild teenage girl, disrespectful of my Mother and doing pretty scary/endangering things, I lied all the time, made-up elaborate stories. Do they have Counselors available at her school that could be like say a &quot;middle-man&quot; in the situation so you could find-out more? Is she still going to school? I can't remember what you said about it.
If it was me I would literally lock her in her room. :)

But I think my daughter and her boyfriend are pretty straight and honest. The girlfriend last year led herinto danger, but my daughter seldom has anything to do with her now. And my daughter is not a wild, angry child. I know the difference as my other two girls, particularly the 2nd oldest, were like that.

But I wish I understood the reason for this secrecy of hers re where the boy lives, etc. I feel like the mother from hell or one to be ashamed of.

A friend sent this to me..As far as I can see, grief will never truly end.It may become softer overtime, more gentleand some days will feel sharp.But grief will last as long as Love does - ForeverIt's simply the way the absence of your loved onemanifests in your heart. A deep longing accompaniedby the deepest Love some days. The heavy fog mayreturn and the next day, it may recede.Once again, it's...

theatre and I are there already. I'm having a very berry tea with crackers, cheese and cherry tomatoes and she's having a joint with some beer and we're both on really comfy recliners on thick pile carpet. we need some help with the decor if anyone is around??

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